Socioeconomic shocks, social protection and household food security amidst COVID-19 pandemic in Africa’s largest economy

Africa has been known to experience series of problems among which are poverty, food insecurity, lack of access to energy, lack of infrastructure among others. These problems were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a severe impact on the socioeconomic status of households in Africa. This paper examines the relationship between socioeconomic shocks, social protection, and household food security during the pandemic in Nigeria, the Africa’s largest economy. Using the World Bank’s COVID-19 national longitudinal baseline phone survey (2020) for the analysis and applied the multinomial logit regression, the study finds that socioeconomic shocks resulting from the pandemic have led to an increased level of food insecurity. Social protection programmes have played a crucial role in mitigating the impact of these shocks on households. However, the study also highlights the need for more targeted and effective social protection policies to ensure that vulnerable households are adequately protected from the adverse effects of the pandemic. The findings of this study have important implications for policymakers and stakeholders in Africa’s largest economy, as they seek to address the challenges posed by the pandemic and promote household food security for the actualisation the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of food and nutrition security (SDG2). The study, therefore, recommends that efforts be made to preserve food supply chains by mitigating the pandemic’s effect on food systems, increasing food production, and looking forward beyond the pandemic by building resilient food systems with the use of social protection interventions.


Introduction
Food security is one of the main goals of the United Nations (UN) 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (particularly, SDG #2, zero hunger), which serves as a proposal to achieve a better and more workable future for all measure [1].Food security is defined as the state of having access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet one's dietary needs for an active and healthy life [1].The achievement of the goal of food security has been weakened by the arrival of COVID-19, and has increased the level of food insecurity, across the globe, particularly, in sub-Saharan African (SSA).
Food insecurity is a growing concern worldwide, affecting millions of people.In SSA, food insecurity has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with an estimated 23% increase in the proportion of people facing acute food insecurity [1].The challenge of achieving food and nutrition security for human survival has remained a critical issue among world countries.More than two decades of efforts through several policy directions for the fight against food insecurity have been affected by socioeconomic shocks occasioned by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) [1]).This implies that during the COVID-19 pandemic, about 900 million households across the globe lacked access to sufficient food [3][4][5].Therefore, this constitutes the main reason why the current problem of food insecurity is severe.Within this population lacking access to sufficient and nutritious food, at least 155 million households suffer from severe food deficiencies, and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic may severely worsen their situation [1].
The FAO [1] estimated that households that suffered from hunger due to the shocks occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic were above 30 million, and about 2.37 billion people lacked access to nutritious and safe food in 2021.To address this global food emergency, there is an urgent need to preserve global food supply chains by mitigating the pandemic's effect on food systems, increasing food production, and looking forward beyond the pandemic by building resilient food systems with the use of social protection interventions.Before the pandemic, most countries of the world were woefully off-track to attaining the United Nation's sustainable development goal of no poverty (SDG1) and zero hunger (SGD2) by 2030.
The arrival of COVID-19 has brought a fundamental influence in deviations in human behaviour, reflecting sustainability such as social and economic responsibility [2][3][4][5][6].Also, this has caused the interest in social protection heightened, with 195 countries already designed or introduced social protection initiatives in response to the pandemic as of June 2020.According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) [7], social protection interventions are essential for promoting social justice, reducing poverty, and improving economic growth and development [7].By definition, social protection is a set of policies and programmes that aim to provide support to vulnerable populations, including the poor, elderly, and disabled, to help them meet their basic needs and improve their well-being [4,8].Social protection measures can include cash transfers, food assistance programs, health care services, and social insurance programs [9].Social assistance accounts for about 60% of these measures, and over 50% are cash-based transfers [5].
Social protection is closely linked to food security because it can help to reduce poverty and improve access to food for vulnerable populations.Cash transfer programmes, for example, can provide households with the resources they need to purchase food, while food assistance programmes can provide direct access to nutritious food [10].There can be a direct and indirect link through which social protection impact food security.Social protection measures can directly alleviate food insecurity by providing access to food through food assistance programs.For example, the World Food Programme's (WFP) food assistance programmes provide vulnerable populations with direct access to nutritious food, such as school meals and emergency food assistance [11].Furthermore, cash transfer programmes, such as Brazil's Bolsa Familia programme, have been shown to increase food consumption and improve dietary diversity among beneficiaries [10].Social protection measures can also indirectly address food insecurity by reducing poverty and increasing household income.Cash transfer programs, for example, can provide households with the resources they need to purchase food and other basic necessities.In addition, social insurance programmes, such as health insurance or unemployment benefits, can help households cope with unexpected expenses and prevent them from falling into poverty and food insecurity [12].Social protection measures can also help build resilience against shocks and crises that can lead to food insecurity.For example, social protection programmes can provide a safety net for households affected by natural disasters or economic downturns, helping them to recover more quickly and prevent long-term food insecurity [10].
This study showcases the ability of social protection to reduce the sturdy effects of shocks amidst COVID-19 and how shock mitigation could drive household food security in Nigeria by building resilience for the most vulnerable.Despite the increasing awareness of the significance of social protection among African policymakers, most rural households in Nigeria lack need access to proper social protection, especially social assistance, which is more difficult for those who rely on farming for a living (Osabohien et al., 2021).At least 60% of Nigerian farmers lack proper social safety access to alleviate the impact of agricultural-related shocks [5] This study contributes to existing knowledge by using the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey 2020 (CNLPS) conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the World Bank [4] to carry out an empirical examination of the impact of shocks amidst the COVID-19 pandemic on food security among Nigerian households and how social protection can be used to mitigate the effects of these shocks.The remaining part of this paper is organised as follows: Section two, which follows the introductory part, is concerned with the review of related literature.Section three is the methodology which describes the model, data and variables employed.Section four presents and discusses the result.The final section, which is section five, summarises the findings of this paper and offers a concluding remark with policy implications.

Empirical review
Research has shown that social protection interventions can have significant positive impacts on individuals and communities.For example, a study in Malawi found that cash transfers to poor households led to improvements in child nutrition, health, and education outcomes [13].Similarly, a study in Ethiopia found that a food-for-work programme improved food security and reduced poverty among participants [14].Social protection interventions can also have positive impacts on economic growth and development.
A study in Brazil found that the Bolsa Familia program, which provides cash transfers to poor families, led to increased school enrolment and reduced poverty, as well as increased economic activity in local communities [15].Another study by Gertler et al. [16].in the case of Mexico, found that the Oportunities and programme, which provides cash transfers and healthcare services to poor families, led to improvements in health outcomes and increased economic activity This section looked at studies that examined shocks, vulnerability and social protection in relation to food security.The literature review is grouped into two sub-sections for clear understanding.Section 2.1 presents studies on social protection and food security, while section 2.1 presents studies dealing with shocks and vulnerability in relation to food security.

Social protection and food security nexus
Maffioli et al. [17] applied randomised controlled trials (RCT) to examine the impact of social protection programmes on food security in times of crisis and found that social protection had the likelihood of fostering food security among the vulnerable.The study found that in relation to those who did not benefit from the programme, those who benefited are more likely to be food secure.In another study, Amare et al. [18] found that food insecurity increased as household sizes increased.The study posits that the age of household heads and increased dependency ratio increased the incidence of food security.The findings also revealed that as income and education levels rise, the rate of food insecurity declines.
Babatunde et al. [19] study used a logit regression and found that 37.2% of households could afford food based on the recommended daily calorie intake (R) of 2260 kcal.On the contrary, the study found that a higher proportion (62.8%) of the household was unable to afford food.Many factors influenced food security, including the size and income of the household, the educational status of household leaders, and the amount of food received from self-production.Osabohien et al. [5] applied the system-generalised method of moments and found that access to social protection intervention contributed to a 1.2% increase in food security in Africa.
Kopnova and Rodionova [20], studied the determinants of food security using time series data, found population growth and foreign aid as the dominant determinants, studies that utilised household data in the different rural and urban context identified sociodemographic and economic status among other factors as the major determinants of food security or insecurity.Nonetheless, there is a growing body of literature investigating the nexus between COVID-19 and food security amongst other indicators of sustainable development.For instance, a crosssectional study of 1478 low-income adults in the United States [21] showed that 44% were not food secure, 36% were food secure and 20% experienced marginal food security in the early stages of the pandemic.
Udmale et al. [22] affirmed that the pandemic will lead to transitory food insecurity in developing countries.Niles et al. [23] noted that individuals who had experienced a loss of employment had a lower odd of experiencing food security.On the other hand, Alvi and Gupta [24] argued that the effect will be more severe for girls and children who are already from disadvantaged ethnic groups.Cleopatra and Abayomi [25] examined the food security status of households during the pandemic and investigated its determinants using the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (COVID-19 NLPS) in Nigeria.The study utilises bivariate as well as multivariate analysis and found that 12% of the households were food secured, 5% were mildly food insecure, 24.5% were moderately food insecure and over half of the households (58.5%) experienced severe food insecurity.
Hidrobo et al. [26] examined the effect of social protection using meta-analysis.The study found that social protection intervention increases the value of food consumption by 13%.In addition, the study showed that social protection increases caloric acquisition by 8% and increases holdings of productive assets, livestock, and savings among farming households.Furthermore, the study by Amare et al. [18] argued that in Senegal, social protection mechanisms such as school feeding programs, among others, helped reduce food insecurity, especially child undernourishment.
Social inclusion should be strengthened so that farmers are less vulnerable to socioeconomic shocks to feed Africa's growing population.This is similar to the findings of Anser et al. [27], which showed that social inclusion increased food security in West Africa.On the contrary, Abay et al. [28] engaged the household fixed effects difference-in-differences method.The study found that household food insecurity increased by 11.7% points, and the size of the food gap increased by 0.47 months after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.The study showed that benefiting from a social protection program ameliorate almost all of the adverse effect of the pandemic; the probability of becoming food insecure increased by only 2.4% points for Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) households, and the food gap increased by only 0.13 months.The study submits that protective means of the PSNP were higher for poorer households and those residing in local communities.

Shocks, vulnerability and food security nexus
Regarding social protection, Osabuohien et al. [5] submit that gaps in inequality and food systems are worsened by socioeconomic shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.Abbass et al. [3] and Abbass et al. [4] pointed that the outbreak of COVID-19 caused a heavy shock on the national and international economy.The study submits that in Pakistan millions of individuals lost their means of livelihood.It further posits that unemployment in Pakistan, due to the outbreak in COVID-19 reached nearly 25 million individuals, leaving many also to sink into hunger and poverty as the main economic injury brought by the pandemic.
Conversely, the study by Osabohien et al. [9] found that assessing social protection programs lower vulnerability and shocks, thereby leading to an improved level of food security.This implies that access to social protection may lower the incidence of shocks.Some studies have it that social protection and climate change adaptation are dual topics vastly argued when discussing social vulnerabilities and food insecurity in local communities of emerging nations.
Social protection tackles issues associated with socioeconomic vulnerabilities and shocks.Thus, it offers avenues for incorporation.Nevertheless, several scholars have argued the need for more collaboration within the study scope.Based on this argument, Mesquita and Bursztyn [29], using a desk review, highlight the inadequate integration between climate-induced shocks and social protection.Similarly, Schwan and Yu [30] found that social protection can reduce climate-induced risk and shocks.The study finds that social protection can be part of a proactive approach to managing climate-induced migration.
In another study, Nyathi [31] highlighted the essence of the readiness of governments to respond to shocks to provide social protection to citizens.It further highlighted the need to adopt more sustainable strategies to help mitigate the effects of pandemics and the need to cushion citizens from the socioeconomic effect of future pandemics.Olawuyi [32] used the Foster-Greer-Thorbecke food consumption expenditure metrics to evaluate the food security profile of households and found that approximately 48% of the smallholder farmers are food insecure.On the contrary, the result from the two-state lease squares shows a non-existence of the reverse causality effect of social network components and households' food security status.
Osabohien et al. [33] also found that social protection positively impacts food security in the West African sub-region among farming households.In the same way, Matthew et al. (2019) showed that social protection for the vulnerable reduces shocks and poverty, leading to food security.Also, Amare et al. 2021) applied the difference-in-difference to investigate the effect of shocks occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic on household food security and found that exposure to COVID-19 related to the probability of food insecurity.Similarly, the study found that lockdown measures as a result of the pandemic resulted in 6% points increase in food insecurity.

Methodology
In summary literature review, studies such asAbbass et al. [3] Abay et al. [28] and Amare et al. [18] have argued on the connection between shocks, vulnerability, social protection, and food security, there is still the need to expand the frontiers of knowledge.In expanding the frontiers of knowledge, this research will focus on the influence of shock orchestrated by the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing insights from the study by Amare et al. [18].The analysis focused on how shocks that came with the pandemic affected food security, and how social protection can be used to mitigate these shocks and improve food security among households in Nigeria.To the authors' best knowledge, the impact of shocks occasioned by COVID-19 and social protection on food security needs to be appropriately conceptualised empirically.Because of this gap in the literature, this study will focus on empirically testing the hypothesis using the multinomial logit regression.
This study is built on the expected utility theory.The expected utility theory was initiated by Daniel Bernoulli in 1738 and extended by John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in 1947 Bernoulli [34].The expected utility theory explains that people make choices to make the best use of their expected utility in risk-averting strategies.In most cases, it is used to explain the condition of risk and individual strategies to avert such risk.The utility obtained from a particular outcome serves as a means of capturing individual attitudes towards risk.This theory's applicability to the study is used to explain the risk, shocks and vulnerability associated with COVID.
Leaning on the Expected Utility theory and previous studies such as Abay et al. [28], Amare et al. [18] and Osabohien et al. [5], the study applied the multinomial logit (MNL) regression.In this study, food security's outcome variable relies on shocks, social protection, and other variables that may influence it.Different from the logit method, the MNL regression is a method which is primarily engaged where there are more than two categories of outcome indicators [35].The method accepts that data are like other linear regression approaches.The MNL applies a linear predictor form f(y,i) to determine the likelihood that observation i have outcome y.
The MNL regression is applied to examine the likelihood of household food security status being affected by shocks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, social protection, and other covariates.Seven indicators of food security are considered in this study, which includes-(if a household is unable to eat healthy and nutritious food, has a limited variety of food, have to skip a meal, household member eating less than they should, household running out of food and did not eat a whole day due to food shortage in the household.Also, let P ij (j = 1,2,. ..,N) denote the likelihood of i th household food security status.The likelihood equals 1 (prob = 1) if the household falls under any of the groups and zero if otherwise.The multinomial logit model, is given by P ij in the equation above is the probability of being in each food security condition 1,. ..,N.
The natural logarithms of the odds ratio of the equations above give the estimating equation as In this study, we measured food security using seven indicators, which is a multinomial outcome.These indicators include-if the household is afraid of running out of food, unable to consume nutritiously and required meals per day, eating only a few different kinds of food, skipping meals to manage food, eating less than required, or going a whole day without eating due to food shortage in the household.We consider these indicators as valid measures of food insecurity.Based on the fact that they capture different aspects of the experience of not having enough food or not having access to the types of food that people need or prefer.These measures can help policymakers and organisations understand the extent and nature of food insecurity in a given population, and design appropriate interventions to address it.From the data, 1 if the household is worried about not having enough food to eat, and 0 otherwise; 1 if the households were unable to eat healthy and nutritious/preferred food during COVID-19, and 0 otherwise; 1 if the household limited themselves to a variety of food and 0 otherwise, 1 if the household had to skip a meal, and 0 otherwise; 1 if the household was eating less than it should, and 0 otherwise; 1 if the household ran out of food, and 0 otherwise; 1if the household did not eat the whole day due to lack of food, and 0 otherwise.Similarly, shocks indicate socioeconomic shock orchestrated by COVID-19 (measured as 1 if the household was severely affected by shocks occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic and 0 if otherwise).In addition, SOP represents the variable for social protection (measured as 1 if the household received assistance or interventions from the government, community/organisations, cooperatives, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, or religious bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic and 0 otherwise).We proxied social protection with receiving an intervention.This measure is considered appropriate measure of social protection because it provides individuals with support and assistance during times of need.
Interventions can take many forms, including financial assistance, healthcare services, education and training programs, and social services.These interventions are designed to help individuals overcome challenges and improve their well-being, particularly in situations where they may not be able to do so on their own [7].Social protection interventions are especially important for vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and those living in poverty.These groups may face greater challenges in accessing basic necessities such as food, shelter, and healthcare, and may be more likely to experience social exclusion or discrimination.
By providing interventions that address these challenges, social protection programs can help to reduce poverty and inequality, promote social inclusion, and improve overall wellbeing.In addition to providing immediate assistance, social protection interventions can also help to build resilience and promote long-term development.For example, education and training programs can help individuals acquire new skills and knowledge that can improve their employment prospects and increase their earning potential.Health interventions can help individuals stay healthy and productive, reducing the burden of illness on families and communities.
Other variables in the model include household characteristics consisting of the age of the household heads (in years), location of the household heads (rural or urban), gender of the household heads (male or female), and e as the random term capturing other variables not listed in the model that is independently and identically distributed (i.i.d).
The study uses the baseline of the COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey 2020 (CNLPS) conducted by the World Bank in conjunction with the National Office of Statistics of Nigeria.The survey is a component of the World Bank's Living Standards Measurement Study-Integrated Surveys on Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) and are collected in partnership with the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS).The LSMS-ISA data for Nigeria, also known as General Household Survey-Panel (GHS-P) [18,36].In this study, we used the first round of the wave, called the baseline survey containing about 4,976 households interviewed during the baseline survey.This data is considered robust because the focus of the survey by the World Bank is that the World Bank is offering means to help countries to aid in the mitigation of the spread and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.In addition, the data are nationally representative and offer comprehensive information on employment, income, food, and nutrition security indicators [18,36]

Summary statistics of the variable
The descriptive analysis of all the relevant variables in this study is shown in Table 1.The table shows that about 49% of the households were worried about not getting sufficient food to eat.In addition, about 61% of households were unable to access healthy and nutritious or preferred food.Approximately 60% of households had a limited variety of food to eat.Another indicator of food security having to skip a meal has a mean of 0.5492, indicating that during the pandemic, 54% of household members had to skip a meal in a day to economise food.Eating less than should has a mean of 0.5955, indicating that 59% of household members eat less than they should.Ran out of food has a mean of 0.4722, indicating that 47% of households ran out of food to eat during COVID-19.Hungry but did not see the food to eat has a mean of 0.4456, indicating that 44% of households were hungry but chose not to eat.They did not eat the whole day due to lack of food has a mean of 0.1869, indicating that 18% of households were hungry but unable to eat.
Concerning social protection, data description shows that during the COVID-19 pandemic, only about 5% of households received intervention from any source.In comparison, the remaining 95% of the household received no intervention from any source.This finding proves a relative need for more social protection intervention in Nigeria.The data showed that about 28% of households were severely affected by COVID-pandemic.The mean age of the household heads is 24 years.This implies that the average age of household heads in Nigeria is 24 years.Gender has a mean value of 0.4994, indicating that 49.9% of household heads are male, while female heads 49.1% of the household.The location has a mean value of 0.5654, indicating that 56.7% of households live in rural communities.

Result from multinomial logit regression
The dependent variable is food security, and the independent variables are social protection, shocks, age, gender, location, and financial inclusion.The result obtained using the multinomial logit regression is presented in Table 2.
The result, as presented in Table 2, shows that the gender of the household heads and age of the household heads are not significant determinants of food security.This can be argued from the point of view that socioeconomic shocks are not respecters of gender.It means that either male or female can be a shock victim.There are places where there might be unfairness towards women, such as denying them employment because of their gender, but that also might not be the case; hence gender may or may not influence vulnerability to shocks.
The results in Table 2 show that shock is statistically insignificant in determining the level of food security during COVID-19.That is, shocks amidst the COVID-19 pandemic had little or no significant effect on food security in Nigeria.This can be explained from the point of view that as a country, Nigeria had suffered from food insecurity for a very long time before the pandemic and based on the fact that the number of moderately or severely food insecure people was about 92 million before the pandemic, then increased to 116 million.Nigeria has always suffered from food insecurity, so shocks will not have a powerful effect on food security, hence the insignificance it has.This is against the findings of Amare et al. [18], which showed that exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic is positively related to the likelihood of increased food insecurity in Nigeria.Similarly, it disagrees with the result Osabohien et al. [5], which showed that socioeconomic shocks are a significant cause of food insecurity, inequality and poverty in the Global South.
The results of the second regression in Table 2 (Column 2) imply that household members who have received assistance (social protection interventions) from any institution such as the government, local government, state government, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, religious bodies, and others are less likely to be unable to eat healthy and nutritious food as opposed to household members that did not.It shows that household members who have received assistance have a lower probability (0.471) of being unable to eat healthy and nutritious food than those who received no assistance.
The result proves that a household member that has received assistance from any institution such as the government, local government, state government, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, religious bodies, and others is less likely to be unable to eat healthy and nutritious food which also confirms the 'a-priori' expectation.This result obtained for the impact of social protection of food security akin to that of Abay et al. [28], Amare et al. [18], Anser et al. [27], Matthew et al. [34], Osabohien et al. [5], that provided empirical evidence to conclude that social protection reduces vulnerability capable of enhancing the level of food security.
The coefficient of social protection also shows that social protection intervention is statistically significant at 10%.This is economically correct as social protection is a potent enhancer of food security in a household.The results also show a negative relationship between social protection and the variable for food security, "unable to eat healthy and nutritious food", which means an increase in social protection will lead to a decrease in the probability of a household member being unable to eat healthy and nutritious food.
Social protection helps in so many ways, as it helps in stabilising earnings, reducing periodic hardship, and rainfall shocks [18], controlling volatility, provision of inclusive support for the farmers [27], safeguarding from shocks [33]; increasing incomes, supporting farming [9], reduce inequality and poverty [34] improving livelihood security, and supporting smallholders, agriculturalists, and landless workers.Food nutrition and security can be improved through social protection in several ways.Food security is comprised of four components: food availability, access, use, and long-term stability.Food security (by increasing economic capacity) and stability are essential components of social protection.Food availability and use are less fundamental, and as a result, they demand extra care.Especially in this period where households' finances have been weakened due to the pandemic, they may not be able to afford healthy and nutritious meals regularly, but with the use of social protection interventions such as food assistance (in its broadest sense: food allocation, discounted food prices, vouchers or coupons, student meals, and so on), transfer payments (restricted or unrestricted money distribution), and infrastructure improvements, these households may be able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on their finances.
The results of the second regression in Table 2 (Column 2) also imply that household members that have received assistance (social protection interventions) from any institution such as the government, local government, state government, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, religious bodies, and others are less likely to eat only a few kinds of food as opposed to household members that did not.It shows that household members who have received assistance have a lower probability (0.574) of eating a few kinds of food than a household member who received no assistance.
The coefficient of social protection also shows that social protection is statistically significant at 5%.This is economically correct because a household receiving social protection assistance will have access to funds and benefits that will allow them to buy a wider variety of foods rather than the limited amount of food they currently consume, which can be attributed to the pandemic's crippling effect on household welfare across the country.The results also show a negative relationship between social protection and the variable for food security "Ate only a few kinds of food", which means an increase in social protection will lead to a decrease in the probability of a household member being unable to eat a variety of foods.
The results of the sixth regression in Table 2 (Column 6) also imply that household members that have received assistance (social protection interventions) from any institution such as the government, local government, state government, non-governmental organisations, international organisations, religious bodies, and others are less likely to run out of food as opposed to household members that did not.It shows that household members who have received assistance have a lower probability (0.878) of running out of food than a household member who received no assistance.The coefficient of social protection also shows that social protection is statistically significant at 1%.The results also show a negative relationship between social protection and the variable for food security, "Ran out of food", which means an increase in social protection will lead to a decrease in the probability of a household running out of food.
The results in the seventh regression in Table 2 (Column 7) show that households living in rural areas are more likely to not eat for a whole day than those in urban areas.It shows that households living in rural areas have a higher probability (0.670) of not eating for a whole day than those living in urban areas.In addition, the result proves that households that reside in rural communities have a higher probability of not eating for a whole day, which also confirms the 'a-priori' expectation.It also shows that the co-efficient has a statistical significance of 5%, which is economically valid because the location may be a determinant for food security, and this also confirms the 'a-priori' expectation.
The nature of sustenance offered to a given region has predominantly been determined by natural (temperature, soil quality, and gradation) and human (technological) factors.For example, Russia and Australia are major wheat and barley producers, respectively.If they experience drought, this causes little foodstuffs such as bread and other wheat-based foods to be less geographically widespread.Global commodities prices rise, making households living in rural areas the most susceptible.Thus, making them unable to purchase food can result in the household not eating for a whole day.Also, rural areas in places like Kaduna or Borno that are more vulnerable to attacks by religious terrorists such as the "Boko haram" might lose property or the life of their primary provider in the household, which can lead to a strain in their finances, causing the household an inability to purchase food which can lead to them not eating for a whole day.

Summary and conclusions
Based on empirical analysis, the study was able to investigate the influence of social protection on food security as well as the contribution of social protection to shock reduction among Nigerian households during the COVID-19 pandemic.There were seven measures used for food security, namely, the number of people that were worried about not having enough food to eat, being unable to eat healthy and nutritious food, eating only a few kinds of food, having to skip a meal, eating less than you should, ran out of food and did not eat for a whole day.
The multinomial logit regression revealed that shocks during the pandemic had no significant impact on household food security.According to the findings of this study, this can be attributed to the fact that Nigeria's food security problems have long persisted and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its shocks were not enough to have a remarkable effect on the already impoverished situation of food security amongst households in Nigeria.
Thus, it showed that social protection is capable of lowering the impact of the shock.This means that increased social protection interventions proved to reduce the probability of a household being affected by shocks.Therefore, more social protection interventions must be initialised to help build the resilience of households, which is also in line with the Sustainable Development Goal of 1.3 (appropriate social protection systems to reduce vulnerability).
The findings of the study validate the hypothesis that 'social protection is a significant driver of food security in Nigeria".Therefore, there is enough evidence to say that the solution to food insecurity is to expand social protection interventions.The study's findings show that social protection reduces the likelihood of food insecurity among vulnerable Nigerian households.The outcomes of this investigation also give credence to the hypothesis that social protection has a considerable impact on shocks."That is, social protection aids in the development of household resilience to shocks and the prevention of future shocks.
Social protection measures should be checked and responsive to accomplish its target goals.However, the study found that the tiny contribution of social protection by institutions has a limited impact on food security and shock buffering.Thus, this study recommends an increase in social protection intervention and coverage.More effort should be put into social protection, particularly by the government, which is supposed to be the primary provider of social protection to its citizens, as religious bodies provide more assistance than the federal government, with the federal government less than 5% of the households.However, this study has limitations.One of the limitations is that the study did not account for the impact of household mobility experience during the COVID-19 pandemic on food security.As a recommendation, given data availability, further studies should consider household mobility experience (lockdown during the pandemic) as a potential factor causing food insecurity.